Global EPIC Soft Landing Programme – PolandKeystone: CYBERSEC HUB

In CYBERSEC HUB we don’t have everything, but we have two things that are critical to the success of your cybersecurity business:

Unique talent pool

If you are a cybersecurity company seeking to tap into a rich talent pool of highly skilled professionals, ranging from developers, to system architects and SOCs operators, CYBERSEC HUB in southern Poland is your place to be. Poland’s abundance of cyber talent has been recognised in numerous rankings and hackathons. According to HackerRank, Polish developers rank third in the world, just after their Chinese and Russian counterparts. Polish Java programmers top the list, followed by other two countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria and Hungary. According to entrepreneurs and investors, Poland stands second only to Singapore as the world’s leading developer hub. Polish developers and hackers have won almost every well-known cyber contest: from Locked Shields to Capture the Flag cycle, to the unofficial developer world cups – Hello World Open and Google Code Jam.

How do we do this? Nationwide, Poland produces 30,000 ICT graduates every year. The city of Krakow, where our CYBERSEC HUB is based, is home to 23 colleges and universities, including one of the top CEE technical universities: AGH University of Science and Technology.

Due to this abundance of talent, the southern region of Poland – Małopolska – attracts global IT companies like Cisco, Akamai, HSBC, EY, Motorola, ABB, to name but a few. Many of them have already chosen Krakow to relocate their Research, Development and Security Operations Centres. In Krakow alone, ICT and business service centres employ a staggering 60,000 people. The city is also one of the largest startup hubs in Europe with over 200 ICT businesses, unparalleled investment opportunities for SMEs, and access to national and regional funding and the entire EU market.

Last but not least, operational costs in Poland are significantly lower than in many other countries. By comparison, the average annual salary of a software developer in 2018 according to PayScale is USD 69,538 in the U.S., USD 64,720 in Israel, USD 53,970 in Germany and USD 23,912 in Poland.

30,000 ICT graduates in Poland every year

23 colleges and universities in the city of Krakow

60,000 people employed in ICT & business services centres in Krakow

More than 200 ICT startups in the city

Low operational costs

Prospective regional market

Krakow is your gateway to Central and Easter Europe (CEE). Here you will find dynamically developing, but still low saturated markets with over 114 million customers. The CEE region is now going through its digital transformation. It’s experiencing a higher than the EU average rate of economic development, which in a medium-term perspective will increase the purchasing power of companies and individuals. A significant share of import of cybersecurity solutions, which in 2016 in 10 CEE countries amounted to almost EUR 2.2 billion (about 20 percent of total EU imports), means a higher demand for products and services that cannot be offered by domestic companies. Furthermore, the above-average growth rate of the cybersecurity market, resulting, among others, from growing security threats and new EU regulations – will increase the import volume of IT security products to almost EUR 3.3 billion in 2021.

The strengths and opportunities associated with the export potential of the CEE countries should make it a priority for global export players to mark their presence in the markets of the region. Low saturation of CEE markets by ICT products and services, combined with rapidly accelerating digitization, renders them particularly attractive for long-term, strategic investments. Vendors who will take active part in the digitization of the region in the coming years will secure their lasting export presence in those markets.

114 million customers in CEE

Low market saturation

EUR 2.2 billion worth import of cybersecurity solutions in 2016

EUR 3.3 billion worth import of the cybersecurity solutions in 2021

THE GLOBAL EPIC SOFT-LANDING PROGRAM - WHAT IS IT?

The Global EPIC Soft-Landing Program offers companies and entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to ‘soft land’ for a trail period in the market of one of the Global EPIC ecosystems. It provides a low risk entry trial to companies and entrepreneurs entering a new international market, accessing the resources they need to more readily tap into commercial opportunities. The soft-landing program is operated by the Global Ecosystem of Ecosystems Partnership in Innovation and Cybersecurity (Global EPIC), a worldwide collaboration between security ecosystems to co-create and adopt world-changing solutions to high-impact cybersecurity challenges, both current and emergent. With the soft-landing program, 9 ecosystems in 6 different countries allow the companies and entrepreneurs within their ecosystems to utilize this global network, further strengthening the ties between the ecosystems.